Note for the Royal Armouries editor: shoot for -6db to -3db for audio normalization. Most RA videos are rather quiet, but Jonathan's bit in this video is nearly inaudible on normal setups.
@@Ndrew556 No doubt a busy day. The TH-cam presence is secondary (or tertiary, even) to foot traffic and the facility, so it's understandably low priority. However, the production quality otherwise, aside from Jonathan's class defining presentation, is overall highly polished. Just a quick audio correction before exporting would bring the TH-cam page to top shape. Def some kind of filter, though not sure what.
@@nicholasvaultonburg9152 to isolate Jonathan’s voice from the background noise, I didn’t explain myself properly lol, as in “there was a lot of noise in the background so they isolated his voice”
I like to think that Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, carried this to the table with his tiny curator arms
As an aviation guy rather than an arms guy it’s really impressive to hear the presenter, primarily an arms guy, have such a sound appreciation of both the engineering of the aircraft and the way it is operated.
I have a 20mm hispano cannon shell and shell-head that was taken as a souvenir by my grandfather who was a Police Officer in rural Leicestershire during WW2. In rural areas there was no air raid warning system except for Police telephones and my father told me that, “ on one occasion a report of a lone enemy aircraft was telephoned in.” Indeed, in 1942 with the R.A.F. bombing of the historic towns of Lubeck and Rostock, there were a number of reprisal raids, which targeted places of cultural significance, known as Baedeker raids which was a series of aerial attacks in April and May 1942 by the German Luftwaffe on English cities during the Second World War. The name derives from Baedeker, a series of German tourist guide books, including detailed maps, which were used to select targets for bombing. After one such raid, a lone, fast twin engine aircraft was spotted in the area and my grandfather went out to investigate the report. Whether he saw the plane I do not know, but two Spitfires from somewhere close-by -possibly R.A.F. Newton- were scrambled to intercept and shot at the fleeing plane, which was obviously lost. The Spitfire by this time had these 20mm Hispano cannons and my grandfatherr picked up two spent cannon shells off the road which had been ejected from one of the fighters involved in the chase. Then, a little further down the road he spotted a piece of the tailplane a field, with the unexploded head of a 20mm cannon shell still lodged in it, which he also retrieved as a souvenir! These two spent cannon shells and accompanying shell head stood on the mantelpiece at my Nan's one of which is now in my care, along with the shell-head, which, slots neatly into the shell casing. Being interested in all things wartime as a youngster, I was always fascinated by these old shells which I used to pick up and examine every chance I got, and polished faithfully every Saturday after my shopping jobs for Nan! On one occasion when granddad was still with us, he told me to look at the end of the shell-head which had the letters BMARC on it which he told me, was British Manufacturing and Research Company (Marco’s) of Springfield Road, Grantham, to which he further added, “it didn’t travel very far did it?” which of course meant from its manufacture in an arms factory in Grantham, to farmland somewhere near Tilton on the Hill! The base of the shell casing is marked K2 1942 which coincides with an early fitting of 20mm Hispano cannons to Spitfires that same year. As you say, initially these were not popular with the pilots because of the tendency of this type of cannon to jam. The fact that it had been fired from a Spitfire was confirmed for me by an ex-R.A.F. armourer that I met in 2002 in Bakewell, who told me that, “if it was fired by a Spitfire, it should have a neat dent-line, two thirds of the way up the shell casing which was made by the ejector mechanism in the Spitfire wing, which worked by clockwork”, which indeed it has!
Interesting. When I was young I lived near Melton Mowbray and a local farmer told me about finding a cannon round in a field. He tried to remove the shell from the cartridge, with a hammer, but it exploded. He still had his fingers and hands so he must have been lucky.
Yes, indeed! Our shell head was still live and hadnt gone off due to a milling mistake. Another interesting aside regarding this wartime souvenir occurred in 1956 when my father was on leave from his National Service in the Royal Engineers in Germany. Having completed some courses on ammunition and its safe disposal, he found that, on inspection, the shell head was an exploding type, which as it was found in one piece, was obviously still live, and promptly disarmed it! “To think” he said, “being kept on a mantel piece, over an open fire, that it not been heated or dropped, was something of a miracle, as if it had, it could of course have exploded!” @@frankmitchell3594
If my grandfather were still alive, he'd have loved this video. He purchased one at a military auction when I was a kid. I never knew what it was until he casually mentioned he had an AA cannon that he was working on (I woulda been about 16 at that time)
@@swright5690 Why would you purchase a gun at an auction that you can't own... I'm not American, though. We can have full auto here with the right requirements.
@@swright5690a 20mm cannon would be registered as a DD not a machine gun or nfa item. you’d apply for a DD license and would need a stamp for every bit of ammo.
Sweet presentation but can you do something with Jonathan's sound levels - listening on headphones I had to turn up Jonathan's spiel which left the IWM bit quite loud and the adverts bloody deafening. Other than that, pretty informative because I'd never have believed that drum mag would have fitted inside a Spitfire wing before seeing this vid.
Props to Johnathan! His presentations are always far more interesting and packed full of -- relevant -- trivia than any other historians I've come across. Well done, Johnny-boy!
To add on to the comments about low volume, it would in no way bother me if there was a clamp-on table/clip-on shirt microphone for when less than ideal noise conditions are present. I'm here for the mechanism to tickle my 'tism. Keep up the great work, shout out that LadLuty
The early Beaufighter night fighters had the ammo drums and the radar operator had to change four of them which was a complete nightmare in the dark until replaced by belt feeds.
funnily, in Poland before WW2, a 20mm rapid-firing auto-loading gun was just called NKM (Heaviest Machine Gun), to distinguish it from a CKM (Heavy Machine Gun) which would be a 7,62mm gun like Maxim). Only after WW2 there appeared a separate term for a .50cal machine gun as WKM (large-caliber machine gun), introduced by the Soviets, while the 20mm NKMs and above were renamed to autocannons ("działko" - little cannon).
I was with the Special Constabulary in Manchester in the early seventies and heard this tale, whether it's true or not I'm not sure but I was assured so at the time. Chap came into the police station and asks if the no questions asked firearms amnesty was still in force. On being told this was so, he said I have a gun to hand in. Sergeant says "well, bring it in then". Chap says he'd need a lift. Turns out to be a 20mm aircraft cannon in the back of his van!
That was terrific! I was born in WWII so always had a keen interest in the RAF fighters. Until a few years ago I thought the Spitfire and Hurricane were equipped only with machine guns but someone told me about the cannons. This video really showed how the latter worked. Thank you!
Yeah, they realized pretty quickly that the .30 cal machine guns weren't sufficient even with 8 or 12 of them installed. Especially against bombers. And the German fighters showed how well canon/machine gun combinations worked.
Fascinating! I have been building kits of Spitfires, Hurricanes etc for years and have always been puzzled by the apparently simple looking design of the Hispano 20mm cannon. Many mysteries now solved thanks to your superb break-down of this widely used gun, many thanks, would love to see more of these on other weapons such as the heavy cannons used by the Luftwaffe.
I have been researching the Hispano series for quite a while, they are very interesting guns and the US development in particular is a rabbithole of versions and variants. Got myself one now and gathering parts to get it running again.
For anyone interested in the mechanics of this in depth, look up "The Machine Gun" By Col George Chinn, they were amazing books made for the navy so they are freely available as PDFs online, volume one but more particularly volume III has a wonderfully long segment on the different versions and mechanics.
The favorite thing for me that came out of US Hispano development was them trying to put it in the P-400 fighter, realizing the gun just doesnt really work, and slapping in the 37mm M4 instead and calling it the P-39 Airacobra.
@@builder396 the US basically screwed up their hispano production from the start and the issues followed those guns for the rest of the service life Book is a good read to learn about it
@@builder396 The P-39 was designed with a single 37mm autocannon and a mix of two .30 and .50 MGs to start with. Fairly hard hitting but lower velocity. The P-400s built for the RAF were re-designed with to take the 20mm. They tried some Airacobras and said politely. Not only no, but bloody NO. The saga of the US production of 20mm Hipano cannon is a sad one. From what I understand the fault lay not with the manufacturer so much as the Board of Ordinance. They screwed up when converting the drawings to inches from metric. Not in the as print dimensions. But in the tolerancing system being used. When the British inspected some of the early ones they commented on just how beautifully made they were *. They just couldn't use them. Also the first US fighters equipped with cannon (P-38 and P-39) were also built with with a system to clear jams. The P-38 had 20mm right from the start. *Oldsmobile was the contractor iirc. The BoO also messed up with the drawings for the MG-42 when they tried to copy it. I'm not sure just what type of tolerancing system the that HS used but even so converting the values should not have been a problem. I guess the designer at BoO wasn't allowed to take his shoes off that day to do higher mathematics.
I've always been curious why these didn't fire shot shells. I would think if each round fired 15-20 half inch ball bearings, it would be very effective against the aircraft of the time.
Poor low level performance, Zeros and FW 190s had superior two speed superchargers giving high performance over a wider altitude band. Much better Spitfire VIIIs were sent east later.
Finally! I’ve been waiting on a Hispano cannon video for years. There’s a WWII submarine memorial in a park where I live in Marquette, Mi and on the mockup conning tower there are a pair of anti-air autocannons. I was well familiar with the Oerlikon from Ian’s work and these cannons on the memorial were clearly not that. They almost look like someone asked a metal worker to fabricate something that looks like a period autocannon, made out of scrap, but the more times I checked these guns out, I saw features like the gas piston that meant this has to be the real gun. I knew next to nothing about the Hispano and the online pictures aren’t great, but I assumed these mystery guns must be Hispanos because what else would they be? Damn it feels good to have my suspicions validated.
My grandad was in the polish Air Force during the war and flew spitfires, then mustangs. 0:00 He thought that 6x .50 cal machine guns was the better armament for the time. He also mentioned that there was a significant loss of airspeed when you fired a long burst from the cannon in the spitfire.
" *6x .50 cal machine guns was the better armament for the time* " Even if it was better, it was much heavier setup, and it would never fit in a Spit. Regardless, it wasn't a better setup. The Brits both considered and even did extensive tests on .50 cals before the war. It turned out that while they did hit a bit harder, the effectiveness was largely reduced if the rounds tumbled while passing through the outer skin of the plane. They decided that fifties weren't worth it. For the same weight, you could do just about as well with a bunch of thirties, and for the long run they knew right away they will need cannons. As it turned out, they were correct.
@@SmedleyDouwright " *Didn't the RAF put .50 cals in late war Spitfires?* " Yes, but it was basically because it was better to have two fifties than two thirties as the MGs. Technically the Spit used to have two thirties in each wing (and a hispano), but the outboard .30 cals weren't really worth it. They hardly ever hit and they had a disproportional impact on performance, so at least some aces were ford of removing those outboard emgees. One inboard fifty was surely better than a spread out pair, so that was the decision, as far as I understand it. BTW - One of the guys known for removing the outboard MGs was Jan Zumbach. His Spit with a characteristic Donald Duck nose art is pictured everywhere. You've seen it many times for sure. So it's likely that this Spit had the outboard MGs removed. BTW - I'm curious if the grandpa of the OP ever met Jan Zumbach.
Perhaps I should have phrased that differently. He preferred to go to war in the mustang. Obviously comparing the armament across different aircraft flying different missions requires a longer discussion than a TH-cam comment section.
My Grandfather Leonard Rossiter (no not that one) was armourer at RAF Tangmere during WW2 & the Battle of Britain where he serviced loaded & adjusted these guns. At my father's house on the mantel piece are 2 x 20mm & 2 larger deactivated shells from this gun/ era.
Yes, they went from cars to also making aircraft engines before the WW1 (because both engines & customers were basically the same at the time), then added wing-mounted cannons to diversify their business again, and then combined the latter two areas to make this gun.
I always remember this from the Pattern Room when I worked at the RA. It was down at the bottom behind a wall of racks and I always loved the huge drum magazine. Great times
I have two 20mm cannon cases and solid heads in perfect condition dated 1942. They came from a spitfire in 19 squadron where my father was based as an air frame fitter. One of the many jobs he took part in was setting the guns with the tailplane lifted.
Your Dad's Spitfire's were tail-draggers so the tail had to be lifted to level the aircraft for gun synchronization. Like a car's wheels, aircraft guns can go out of alignment after firing. They must be synchronized, periodically. Our Venoms had nose wheels so were basically level. But tire inflation and undercarriage hydraulics varied so the planes had to be leveled to synchronize the guns. Ours were taken to a firing range where the undercarriage was retracted and the plane leveled (with spirit levels). Then the guns were fired briefly and the target checked for projectile (not bullet) grouping. The guns' forward suspension in the aircraft was an eccentric wheel which could be unlocked and rotated to adjust where the gun pointed and thus alter the projectiles' trajectory. The requirement was that all 4 guns target-synchronized at 1,000 yards.
The nazis used low velocity, low rate of fire blow back operated Oerlikons in the Bf 109E. They were used later in the _Jazz Music_ upwards firing night fighter installation.
The video is for the most part too quiet, which is a pity, for the topic is quite interesting, especially with such levels of detail. Speaking of which, I was expecting to see the lockwork in more detail. 1:44 Well, judging by the standard given you could say that 1 pdr Maxim guns, the so called 'Pom-poms', dating back to the end of the nineteenth century and used in both Second Anglo-Boer and First World wars, would be the first autocannons. If, however, you meant to say 'aircraft-mounted autocannon', then one has to mention Becker's Type M2, the progenitor of the Oerlikon's S and FF autocannons, which also goes back to WW1. 1:53 Wasn't its main drawback the fact that it wasn't Hispano Suiza's own design, and they had to pay for it to Oerlikon? 12:26 Certainly from the weight point of view it is, and that matters a lot for planes.
The audio is out of my hands unfortunately, and there just isn't time to cover the mechanical side in detail as well as the historical aspects. I'm encouraged to do 15 minutes and frequently go well over that as it is :) 1:44 - You could, yes, but they didn't - obviously there are historical forerunners for most things but I'm talking here about how similar weapons came to be called "cannon". The 1pr Maxim was never referred to as a "cannon". 1:53 - quite possibly. Not something that I came across whilst researching but it would make sense. But designers always think they can beat each other.
Almost all these videos are way too quiet. It's in part Jonathan's natural tone and in part poor sound mixing. I suspect they don't have a professional sound engineer who could easily offset the issue. I do wish they'd invest in some time or money in a pass on the sound.
Great video. Perhaps a mention of the installations on the Beufighter and Mosquito would have been welcome. The first installations in the Beaufighter were magazine fed and required the observer to leave his radar display and come and change the drums, in the dark and in a moving aircraft. See "Night fighter" Rawnsley, C. F..
0:55. I believe the French called it a canon due to the shape. I speak Portuguese, which same as French, is a Latin based language. ‘Canó’ is Portuguese for pipe. So I think ‘canon’ must be French for a pipe shaped item is some way.
Hi Jonathan. I love the videos and heard RA in Leeds was a blast when my parents visited a few months back. I have a small suggestion for the channel. Could you possibly boost the overall audio levels ? I always need to turn up my volume manually to hear your commentary, which then leads to ads and the next video being blaringly loud. thanks !
That was an excellent video although the sound was somewhat lacking. You should mentally separate g from attitude. The two are not related. You can be upside down pulling 1 g (or 3 g) or the “the right way up” at zero g. Air-to-air gunnery typically requires the hunter to turn towards and aim at a point ahead of where their target is flying. The hope is that the target flies into their projectiles’ path. The task of computing “lead” was aided by the gyroscopic gunsight. Before these it was pretty much a hit or miss affair with the preponderance towards the latter.
My Grandad was a Quartermaster during WW2 as he was too old for battle. I have one of the rounds from a Spitfire that he had converted into a cigarette lighter. You pull the black bullet off to reveal a wick and sparkwheel. There is a brass, flat head screw where the primer goes. Apparently he had kept a lot of things he shouldn't have, which my dad said were spread all over the house he grew up in.
I find the explanations quite convoluted, the reality is quite simple: Hispano Suiza was originally a Spanish car manufacturer, but, diversifying into aviation, these new activities were entirely installed in France as a Franco-Spanish company. During the creation of the 12Y engine which will first equip the Morane 406 then the Dewoitine D520, it was decided to integrate a 20mm cannon firing through the axis of the propeller: this is the famous Canon HS404 , also known in the Soviet Union under the designation ShWAK integrated into the Klimov 105 engine which is nothing other than an evolution of the 12Y for which the Soviets had purchased the rights before the war and which equipped the Yax 1, 3 and 9. The British quickly understood the advantages of this excellent, precise, powerful and reliable canon, and quickly installed it on certain Spitfires, however, this gun being designed to operate in the heat of the engine, posed numerous jamming problems due to the icing, in addition the drum magazine was too bulky and of low capacity (60 rounds) and did not properly fit in the wings, the British branch of Hispano Suiza therefore revised the design and also adapted it to a belt feed. Naturally , the installation of such a powerful weapon posed some problems on planes not initially designed for that, but the British preferred it to the cal 50 heavy machine guns favored by the Americans. The HS404 cannon has had a very long career, as it equipped the F8FN Crusader in service until 1999 in the French navy.
*chuckles* reminds me of the novel 'Sharpe's Command' which I read the other day. Lieutenant Love (predictably called Cupid behind his back) was in the artillery, and said it seemed appropriate as his father was a canon. Sgt Harper thought he meant /cannon/ so decided Love was as mad as a box of frogs :)
I really love these videos but I sincerely wish the audio levels were better - most of these videos are incredibly quiet and I always have to turn my volume way up specifically for these videos.
the hole gun recioling is a good thing with drum mags it will shuffle the rounds in the drum and help the restack for better feeding,this is why drum mags work better with the gun held upside down ,,,, like a hopper.. its not only gavity that helps feed that way up.
Had one dug up back in the day close to what was RAF Bishops Court... Had it in the armoury for a clean up for ages...always wondered what a full y restored one would look like
My grandfather served in the War, and one of the things I inherited from him is a lighter built out of an unfired round from one of these beasts. It doesn't work anymore, but it seems like the lighter fluid would go where the cordite goes and the bullet is unaltered. (Obviously not a high-ex bullet, that would not be a good choice for a lighter body.) It's a neat little bit of history to have around.
About 9:00 ~ before we move off it completely, I always understood a 'Machine gun' could be armed with solids or tracers, and being a rifle calibre, that's about all. A gun became a "Canon" when it could fire a variety of ammunition, such as you showed here, with solids, incendiary, tracer, or high explosive or armour piercing. 1) higher calibre (starts about 20mm, yes) and 2) multiple ammunition types, including solid, armour piercing, incendiary and explosive. A Browning .50 cal (Ma Deuce) is sorta on the boundary, close to it. Most were (and are) armed with solids, but a half inch is big enough to make specialised ammunition for. Later, we developed Gatling type multi-barrel guns, and learned you need to deal with your brass, so they worked out a clever system where the spent rounds got shifted to the back of the magazine. You can just let them spew brass everywhere but it's not a safe arrangement in an aircraft. There is also the question of having and carrying lots of ammunition. You do want a rate of fire that's up over 800 rounds / min, but you also want to be able to hose out at least a 5 second burst ~ at least once. A gun that can and does spend it's whole 800 round magazine in less than 3 seconds or so ~ doesn't give you much of a second chance. A Mini-gun could chew through 6,ooo rounds a minute or something. You'd need to carry a hell of a lot of ammunition for that one. Yes, a Mini-gun was generally a 7.62, not a 20mm. The 20 mm can still go through 6,ooo if you're trying but I understand a more normal rate is about 2400 ~ 3000. You should have somewhere upward of 7 ~ 10 seconds firing time. Less than that, and you're in real danger of using your whole magazine in one burst.
I've been following the videos, great series but if you could do something with the way too low sound level that would be great, now the video is just unwatchable with the massive variation. I like my hearing so I won't be turning the volume to double or triple to hear what Jonathan is saying.
My grandfather was a design engineer with Ford's at Dagenham during the entire war... I remember him telling of working on the spitfire, Churchill tank,and other various things they did there for the war efforts. He may well have been heavily involved with the transition of the spitfires all round performance... I do know that he had several 303 rounds and a couple of old Canon shells very similar to those shown... His job was whatever came his way ,and to improve,improvise, update, create ...He wasn't allowed to volunteers for active service ,as he was told his and his colleagues efforts would be far more destructive to the enemy than as individuals getting shot as a single soldier...Apparently he always tried ,but his applications used to get put back on his desk lol.. So he went home guard instead ,and was in charge of 6 anti aircraft guns near the factory... A lot of his work became easier as well due to the Americans bringing in all their newest tools of mass production and specialist tools ...Britain needed...
Like the kink to rhe Spitfire, very interesting to see the weapon in the context of how it was used and the developent of the aircraft to accoodate it. big thubs up.
"What if" is always fun, and I wonder how big of an effect it would have had on the battle of Britain, had the 20mm cannons worked perfectly then already.
I was always under the impression that a "cannon" in this regard meant it fired ammo with an explosive projectile as the norm. Whereas machine guns normally fire a solid projectile.
Hey Jonathan, thanks for another great video! As an Aussie I predominantly use metric but because of my age I'm quite fluent in Imperial too so please forgive my confusion. When you say 7.9 feet, do you mean 7 feet 9 inches or 7 feet and 9/10ths of a foot or something I haven't even considered? I'm a little confused by this on a regular basis and suspect it's an artifact of people jumping between both systems but I'm never sure!
The early Spitfire's armament was the result of calculations made by 13 year old Hazel Hill. She worked out that it needed at least eight machine guns rather than the four it was originally destined for.
If eight were insufficient just think how bad four would have been. Granted one rifle caliber round in theright place will take down a single and possibly a twin engined bomber of the period. Specifically a hit on the engine coolant or oiling system. These fluids were being pumped at high volumes with a limited supply which would lead to engine failure. Radials are less susceptible to this being air cooled but also suffer from higher drag on the engine installation. That is until the FW-190 and a few other types proved otherwise.
Canon, the round made of steel has a copper drive band formed around the round, alternatively a machine gun, the drive band is formed into the soft bullet casing while being driven down the barrel
This is pretty cool to learn about. I had some idea about it's mechanical workings having the documentation for the US versions. An interesting tidbit is that the US did not call them cannons. We called them Automatic Guns. Also, the HS.404 was not an original design by Hispano-Suzia. It was a modified version of the Oerlikon 20mm used in many other aircraft before and during WW 2 such as the Bf 109, A6M2, D.520, and P-38. Essentially what happened with the British version (your Mk. II) was they ended up having to modify it because what was happening was the gun was as you said designed to be mounted in an engine block, and the struggles they were having were related to trying to get it to work in a wing where it was able to vibrate and move quite a bit leading to the constant misfeeds and jamming
While they certainly referred to the Oerlikon in the design of the Hispano-Suiza, it was a fundamentally different gun using an entirely different mechanism
Why was the mistake in the chamber length continued in US versions of the Hispano. I know International Harvester made the initial error, leading to light strikes on the primer and misfires on the M1 version, but why did this continue right up to the M24?
-You are actually correct. The first Hsipani-Suyiza canon were license produced Oerlikons which came out the the German WW1 Becker design. It's a complicated story but roughly its true that the Germans invented the 20mm class of weapons in WW1 (Beckerer M2 Canon that became the Oerlikon FF) and Solothurn ST-5 that became the C30 FLAK. Because of the treaty of Versailes manufacture in Germany was impossible these patents of the German works was sold of to Dutch, Swedish and Swiss companies often with substantial investment by the German companies or in joint ventures using German engineers. -The Becker came back as the Oerlikon MG FF used on Early German Fighters like the Me 109E and the more powerful Soluthurn as the C30 FLAK. -The HS.404 was Hispano's design using an American patent after the relationship with Oerlikon broke down. It used a gas mechanism to operate the bolt thus increasing rate of fire by about 75% -The German 15mm MG151 and the necked up 20mm MG 151/20 were recoil operated and lighter than the Hispano. They had the same ROF but slightly lower velocity and shell weigh so considerably less kinetic energy. The 15mm MG151 actually had better ballistics and muzzle velocity than the US M2 Browning and the Hispano but the small projectile size wasn't destructive enough. The pilots of early Me 109F0/F1 that had the 15mm canon loved it because of its accuracy but the average pilot lacked the skill to take long range shots. In addition when attacking a bomber formation the turbulence mad long range shooting difficult. -The Germans added gas operation to nearly double rate of fire on 30mm MK101 to 30mm MK103 and nearly double ROF with gas operation on 3.7cm FLAK 37 to 3.7cm FLAK 42.
what tf is up with the audio being so quiet i literally have windows volume at 100, youtube volume at 100 and even my tv is turned all the way up to over 50
A long time ago I helped baby sit a US 20 mm M2 Hispano Aircraft Autocannon for a couple of weeks. My dad although a medic was an Oerlikon gunner when traveling back and forth across the Pacific on Troopships as a US Army Hospital Ship Medic part of a 8 enlisted one Officer regimental level unit. The US copy of the 404 chambers were a tiny fraction of an inch too long due poor measurement conversion in usage at the time which caused jamming on occasion depending on ammo lots.
When I saw the silhouette preview, I thought "That looks like an aircraft-mounted autocannon", and then immediately decided that "Nah, that can't be right." I guess I need to learn to better trust my first impression.
Remember reading John Cunningham's radar operator describing changing the magazines on the four cannons inside a bucking beaufighter during night-fighter operations in the early part of the war.. Now l can see the size of the magazine l can understand his predicament.......
You made a reference to lubricating oil making the action difficult to operate, would incorrect specification lubricating oil at low temperatures contribute to misfires/fouling?
Canon also sound a little more, oomph than gun. I actually prefers your usual background Jonathan, the warehouse shots reminds me of Matrix, 'Guns, we need lots of guns....' Speaking of, have you done a Matrix breakdown?
Note for the Royal Armouries editor: shoot for -6db to -3db for audio normalization. Most RA videos are rather quiet, but Jonathan's bit in this video is nearly inaudible on normal setups.
I think they’re applying some sort of filter, maybe it was a busy day at the museum
@@Ndrew556 No doubt a busy day. The TH-cam presence is secondary (or tertiary, even) to foot traffic and the facility, so it's understandably low priority. However, the production quality otherwise, aside from Jonathan's class defining presentation, is overall highly polished. Just a quick audio correction before exporting would bring the TH-cam page to top shape. Def some kind of filter, though not sure what.
this must have been an accident. It's not normally this bad.
@@nicholasvaultonburg9152 to isolate Jonathan’s voice from the background noise, I didn’t explain myself properly lol, as in “there was a lot of noise in the background so they isolated his voice”
@@Ndrew556 Ahh, that'd make sense. Tough thing to clean up if that's the case. His voice does have the hints of a low pass filter.
I like to think that Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, carried this to the table with his tiny curator arms
Secretly under his blazer he actually has arms that rival Arnold Schwarzenegger
Mans got biceps on top of his biceps
One arm. He had the drum and belt feeders in the other.
@@Stevo_1998 does that count as concealed carry ?
Wrecked
you forgot "which houses thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history"
As an aviation guy rather than an arms guy it’s really impressive to hear the presenter, primarily an arms guy, have such a sound appreciation of both the engineering of the aircraft and the way it is operated.
He just likes shootas and engineering plus he's true expert
I'm both and this is a match made in heaven for me.
I approve of that thumbnail pun.
Ohhhhh😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Very punny 😅
I have a 20mm hispano cannon shell and shell-head that was taken as a souvenir by my grandfather who was a Police Officer in rural Leicestershire during WW2. In rural areas there was no air raid warning system except for Police telephones and my father told me that, “ on one occasion a report of a lone enemy aircraft was telephoned in.” Indeed, in 1942 with the R.A.F. bombing of the historic towns of Lubeck and Rostock, there were a number of reprisal raids, which targeted places of cultural significance, known as Baedeker raids which was a series of aerial attacks in April and May 1942 by the German Luftwaffe on English cities during the Second World War. The name derives from Baedeker, a series of German tourist guide books, including detailed maps, which were used to select targets for bombing.
After one such raid, a lone, fast twin engine aircraft was spotted in the area and my grandfather went out to investigate the report. Whether he saw the plane I do not know, but two Spitfires from somewhere close-by -possibly R.A.F. Newton- were scrambled to intercept and shot at the fleeing plane, which was obviously lost. The Spitfire by this time had these 20mm Hispano cannons and my grandfatherr picked up two spent cannon shells off the road which had been ejected from one of the fighters involved in the chase. Then, a little further down the road he spotted a piece of the tailplane a field, with the unexploded head of a 20mm cannon shell still lodged in it, which he also retrieved as a souvenir!
These two spent cannon shells and accompanying shell head stood on the mantelpiece at my Nan's one of which is now in my care, along with the shell-head, which, slots neatly into the shell casing.
Being interested in all things wartime as a youngster, I was always fascinated by these old shells which I used to pick up and examine every chance I got, and polished faithfully every Saturday after my shopping jobs for Nan! On one occasion when granddad was still with us, he told me to look at the end of the shell-head which had the letters BMARC on it which he told me, was British Manufacturing and Research Company (Marco’s) of Springfield Road, Grantham, to which he further added, “it didn’t travel very far did it?” which of course meant from its manufacture in an arms factory in Grantham, to farmland somewhere near Tilton on the Hill!
The base of the shell casing is marked K2 1942 which coincides with an early fitting of 20mm Hispano cannons to Spitfires that same year. As you say, initially these were not popular with the pilots because of the tendency of this type of cannon to jam. The fact that it had been fired from a Spitfire was confirmed for me by an ex-R.A.F. armourer that I met in 2002 in Bakewell, who told me that, “if it was fired by a Spitfire, it should have a neat dent-line, two thirds of the way up the shell casing which was made by the ejector mechanism in the Spitfire wing, which worked by clockwork”, which indeed it has!
Great story, great writing. I enjoyed your comment very much, props to your granddad and of course props to you for preserving that family heirloom.
I have one that was found near Parks in NSW Australia. A former training area.
It has "BBC 1941 20MM" And it still has the belt link on it.
Interesting. When I was young I lived near Melton Mowbray and a local farmer told me about finding a cannon round in a field. He tried to remove the shell from the cartridge, with a hammer, but it exploded. He still had his fingers and hands so he must have been lucky.
funny to see the good old WWII propaganda is still alive.
Yes, indeed! Our shell head was still live and hadnt gone off due to a milling mistake. Another interesting aside regarding this wartime souvenir occurred in 1956 when my father was on leave from his National Service in the Royal Engineers in Germany. Having completed some courses on ammunition and its safe disposal, he found that, on inspection, the shell head was an exploding type, which as it was found in one piece, was obviously still live, and promptly disarmed it! “To think” he said, “being kept on a mantel piece, over an open fire, that it not been heated or dropped, was something of a miracle, as if it had, it could of course have exploded!” @@frankmitchell3594
If my grandfather were still alive, he'd have loved this video.
He purchased one at a military auction when I was a kid. I never knew what it was until he casually mentioned he had an AA cannon that he was working on (I woulda been about 16 at that time)
lucky you
Registered/transferable? USA? I suspect there are a few on the NFTR.
@@swright5690 Why would you purchase a gun at an auction that you can't own...
I'm not American, though. We can have full auto here with the right requirements.
@@swright5690a 20mm cannon would be registered as a DD not a machine gun or nfa item. you’d apply for a DD license and would need a stamp for every bit of ammo.
Sweet presentation but can you do something with Jonathan's sound levels - listening on headphones I had to turn up Jonathan's spiel which left the IWM bit quite loud and the adverts bloody deafening. Other than that, pretty informative because I'd never have believed that drum mag would have fitted inside a Spitfire wing before seeing this vid.
Props to Johnathan! His presentations are always far more interesting and packed full of -- relevant -- trivia than any other historians I've come across.
Well done, Johnny-boy!
I didn't expect to see an autocannon, but I definitely like it.
Hopefully you are pronouncing Cannon like you're a frenchy 😊
Mee too. I feel like a teen finally seeing the contents of a bra.
@@bakters what's a bra
@@samholdsworth420 " *what's a bra* "
I've been told today that "everything is an opinion", so I guess it's gotta be one of those...?
@@bakters I think bras are like cups for men who identify as women 🧐
I could be wrong though
To add on to the comments about low volume, it would in no way bother me if there was a clamp-on table/clip-on shirt microphone for when less than ideal noise conditions are present. I'm here for the mechanism to tickle my 'tism. Keep up the great work, shout out that LadLuty
The early Beaufighter night fighters had the ammo drums and the radar operator had to change four of them which was a complete nightmare in the dark until replaced by belt feeds.
At least they were more reliable this way. British were definitely not fans of their 20mm`s.
funnily, in Poland before WW2, a 20mm rapid-firing auto-loading gun was just called NKM (Heaviest Machine Gun), to distinguish it from a CKM (Heavy Machine Gun) which would be a 7,62mm gun like Maxim). Only after WW2 there appeared a separate term for a .50cal machine gun as WKM (large-caliber machine gun), introduced by the Soviets, while the 20mm NKMs and above were renamed to autocannons ("działko" - little cannon).
I guess NKM is Najcięższy karabin maszynowy, CKM is Cięższy, and WKM is Wielki ?
CKM is Ciężki (Heavy) and WKM is Wielkokalibrowy (Large-Caliber) which is a direct translation from Russian (krupnokalibyerniy). @@coffeecodecameras
dzięki 🙂 @@radiozelaza
good Polish btw :) @@coffeecodecameras
A vídeo about the mg 151 would also be interesting.
I was with the Special Constabulary in Manchester in the early seventies and heard this tale, whether it's true or not I'm not sure but I was assured so at the time. Chap came into the police station and asks if the no questions asked firearms amnesty was still in force. On being told this was so, he said I have a gun to hand in. Sergeant says "well, bring it in then". Chap says he'd need a lift. Turns out to be a 20mm aircraft cannon in the back of his van!
That was terrific! I was born in WWII so always had a keen interest in the RAF fighters. Until a few years ago I thought the Spitfire and Hurricane were equipped only with machine guns but someone told me about the cannons. This video really showed how the latter worked.
Thank you!
Yeah, they realized pretty quickly that the .30 cal machine guns weren't sufficient even with 8 or 12 of them installed. Especially against bombers. And the German fighters showed how well canon/machine gun combinations worked.
You really can't of had a "keen interest" if you've only just found this out.
Fascinating! I have been building kits of Spitfires, Hurricanes etc for years and have always been puzzled by the apparently simple looking design of the Hispano 20mm cannon. Many mysteries now solved thanks to your superb break-down of this widely used gun, many thanks, would love to see more of these on other weapons such as the heavy cannons used by the Luftwaffe.
I have been researching the Hispano series for quite a while, they are very interesting guns and the US development in particular is a rabbithole of versions and variants. Got myself one now and gathering parts to get it running again.
For anyone interested in the mechanics of this in depth, look up "The Machine Gun" By Col George Chinn, they were amazing books made for the navy so they are freely available as PDFs online, volume one but more particularly volume III has a wonderfully long segment on the different versions and mechanics.
The favorite thing for me that came out of US Hispano development was them trying to put it in the P-400 fighter, realizing the gun just doesnt really work, and slapping in the 37mm M4 instead and calling it the P-39 Airacobra.
@@builder396 the US basically screwed up their hispano production from the start and the issues followed those guns for the rest of the service life
Book is a good read to learn about it
@@builder396
The P-39 was designed with a single 37mm autocannon and a mix of two .30 and .50 MGs to start with. Fairly hard hitting but lower velocity. The P-400s built for the RAF were re-designed with to take the 20mm. They tried some Airacobras and said politely. Not only no, but bloody NO.
The saga of the US production of 20mm Hipano cannon is a sad one. From what I understand the fault lay not with the manufacturer so much as the Board of Ordinance. They screwed up when converting the drawings to inches from metric. Not in the as print dimensions. But in the tolerancing system being used. When the British inspected some of the early ones they commented on just how beautifully made they were *. They just couldn't use them. Also the first US fighters equipped with cannon (P-38 and P-39) were also built with with a system to clear jams. The P-38 had 20mm right from the start.
*Oldsmobile was the contractor iirc. The BoO also messed up with the drawings for the MG-42 when they tried to copy it. I'm not sure just what type of tolerancing system the that HS used but even so converting the values should not have been a problem. I guess the designer at BoO wasn't allowed to take his shoes off that day to do higher mathematics.
I've always been curious why these didn't fire shot shells. I would think if each round fired 15-20 half inch ball bearings, it would be very effective against the aircraft of the time.
Nice collaboration, I hope we see more.
Great comment! It made for a much more complete story.
As an Aussie, Spitfire MkVc/Trop is the iconic (and my favourite) spitfire to me. I just love everything about it!
Poor low level performance, Zeros and FW 190s had superior two speed superchargers giving high performance over a wider altitude band. Much better Spitfire VIIIs were sent east later.
Finally! I’ve been waiting on a Hispano cannon video for years. There’s a WWII submarine memorial in a park where I live in Marquette, Mi and on the mockup conning tower there are a pair of anti-air autocannons. I was well familiar with the Oerlikon from Ian’s work and these cannons on the memorial were clearly not that. They almost look like someone asked a metal worker to fabricate something that looks like a period autocannon, made out of scrap, but the more times I checked these guns out, I saw features like the gas piston that meant this has to be the real gun. I knew next to nothing about the Hispano and the online pictures aren’t great, but I assumed these mystery guns must be Hispanos because what else would they be? Damn it feels good to have my suspicions validated.
This cleared up a lot of my wrongheadedness about auto cannons. Another great video.
My grandad was in the polish Air Force during the war and flew spitfires, then mustangs. 0:00
He thought that 6x .50 cal machine guns was the better armament for the time.
He also mentioned that there was a significant loss of airspeed when you fired a long burst from the cannon in the spitfire.
" *6x .50 cal machine guns was the better armament for the time* "
Even if it was better, it was much heavier setup, and it would never fit in a Spit. Regardless, it wasn't a better setup. The Brits both considered and even did extensive tests on .50 cals before the war. It turned out that while they did hit a bit harder, the effectiveness was largely reduced if the rounds tumbled while passing through the outer skin of the plane.
They decided that fifties weren't worth it. For the same weight, you could do just about as well with a bunch of thirties, and for the long run they knew right away they will need cannons. As it turned out, they were correct.
@@bakters Didn't the RAF put .50 cals in late war Spitfires?
@@SmedleyDouwright " *Didn't the RAF put .50 cals in late war Spitfires?* "
Yes, but it was basically because it was better to have two fifties than two thirties as the MGs.
Technically the Spit used to have two thirties in each wing (and a hispano), but the outboard .30 cals weren't really worth it. They hardly ever hit and they had a disproportional impact on performance, so at least some aces were ford of removing those outboard emgees.
One inboard fifty was surely better than a spread out pair, so that was the decision, as far as I understand it.
BTW - One of the guys known for removing the outboard MGs was Jan Zumbach. His Spit with a characteristic Donald Duck nose art is pictured everywhere. You've seen it many times for sure. So it's likely that this Spit had the outboard MGs removed.
BTW - I'm curious if the grandpa of the OP ever met Jan Zumbach.
Perhaps I should have phrased that differently.
He preferred to go to war in the mustang.
Obviously comparing the armament across different aircraft flying different missions requires a longer discussion than a TH-cam comment section.
Sadly my grandad passed some years ago but I'll ask my aunt if she knows.
Excellent video content and presentation wise. Got to knock a point off for the sound though.
This video was definitely not long enough. I feel there was so much material hinted at but not covered. We need a part 2 for this.
great video as always! sidenote; the audio on this video was much lower than anything else just saying
Thanks for the excellent showing and description of that beautiful 20mm monster.
Really low audio balance again this video. Thank goodness for auto subtitle. Even if it is a bit weird on some words
My Grandfather Leonard Rossiter (no not that one) was armourer at RAF Tangmere during WW2 & the Battle of Britain where he serviced loaded & adjusted these guns.
At my father's house on the mantel piece are 2 x 20mm & 2 larger deactivated shells from this gun/ era.
Please turn your audio up. Sound is very low from this video.
So it is the same Hispano Suiza as the car company
Yes, they went from cars to also making aircraft engines before the WW1 (because both engines & customers were basically the same at the time), then added wing-mounted cannons to diversify their business again, and then combined the latter two areas to make this gun.
And the coffee maker machine. First saw a design in 1966 and latterly in 2019
Yes ,train engines and big diesels too .
I’m heading to the museum today can’t wait to see it all
I always remember this from the Pattern Room when I worked at the RA. It was down at the bottom behind a wall of racks and I always loved the huge drum magazine. Great times
Thank you Jonathan, I've been waiting a long time to see a video on a Hispano Suiza
I have two 20mm cannon cases and solid heads in perfect condition dated 1942. They came from a spitfire in 19 squadron where my father was based as an air frame fitter. One of the many jobs he took part in was setting the guns with the tailplane lifted.
Your Dad's Spitfire's were tail-draggers so the tail had to be lifted to level the aircraft for gun synchronization.
Like a car's wheels, aircraft guns can go out of alignment after firing. They must be synchronized, periodically. Our Venoms had nose wheels so were basically level. But tire inflation and undercarriage hydraulics varied so the planes had to be leveled to synchronize the guns.
Ours were taken to a firing range where the undercarriage was retracted and the plane leveled (with spirit levels). Then the guns were fired briefly and the target checked for projectile (not bullet) grouping.
The guns' forward suspension in the aircraft was an eccentric wheel which could be unlocked and rotated to adjust where the gun pointed and thus alter the projectiles' trajectory. The requirement was that all 4 guns target-synchronized at 1,000 yards.
Excellent description of the HS cannon system! I've always wondered what sort of mechanisms they were using to knock down Axis aircraft.
sound issues?
If you one in your collection, it would be interesting to see a video with the Hispano's main contemporary, the MG 151/20.
The nazis used low velocity, low rate of fire blow back operated Oerlikons in the Bf 109E. They were used later in the _Jazz Music_ upwards firing night fighter installation.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 The Me109E also only had 60 rounds per cannon.
The video is for the most part too quiet, which is a pity, for the topic is quite interesting, especially with such levels of detail. Speaking of which, I was expecting to see the lockwork in more detail.
1:44 Well, judging by the standard given you could say that 1 pdr Maxim guns, the so called 'Pom-poms', dating back to the end of the nineteenth century and used in both Second Anglo-Boer and First World wars, would be the first autocannons. If, however, you meant to say 'aircraft-mounted autocannon', then one has to mention Becker's Type M2, the progenitor of the Oerlikon's S and FF autocannons, which also goes back to WW1.
1:53 Wasn't its main drawback the fact that it wasn't Hispano Suiza's own design, and they had to pay for it to Oerlikon?
12:26 Certainly from the weight point of view it is, and that matters a lot for planes.
I've noticed a few of their videos have the volume down too low unfortunately.
The audio is out of my hands unfortunately, and there just isn't time to cover the mechanical side in detail as well as the historical aspects. I'm encouraged to do 15 minutes and frequently go well over that as it is :)
1:44 - You could, yes, but they didn't - obviously there are historical forerunners for most things but I'm talking here about how similar weapons came to be called "cannon". The 1pr Maxim was never referred to as a "cannon".
1:53 - quite possibly. Not something that I came across whilst researching but it would make sense. But designers always think they can beat each other.
Almost all these videos are way too quiet. It's in part Jonathan's natural tone and in part poor sound mixing. I suspect they don't have a professional sound engineer who could easily offset the issue. I do wish they'd invest in some time or money in a pass on the sound.
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries I see, thanks for comment.
What a fantastic resource these videos are, thanks so much for making,u ploading etc.
Great video. Perhaps a mention of the installations on the Beufighter and Mosquito would have been welcome. The first installations in the Beaufighter were magazine fed and required the observer to leave his radar display and come and change the drums, in the dark and in a moving aircraft. See "Night fighter" Rawnsley, C. F..
0:55. I believe the French called it a canon due to the shape.
I speak Portuguese, which same as French, is a Latin based language.
‘Canó’ is Portuguese for pipe.
So I think ‘canon’ must be French for a pipe shaped item is some way.
Hi Jonathan. I love the videos and heard RA in Leeds was a blast when my parents visited a few months back. I have a small suggestion for the channel. Could you possibly boost the overall audio levels ? I always need to turn up my volume manually to hear your commentary, which then leads to ads and the next video being blaringly loud. thanks !
That was an excellent video although the sound was somewhat lacking. You should mentally separate g from attitude. The two are not related. You can be upside down pulling 1 g (or 3 g) or the “the right way up” at zero g. Air-to-air gunnery typically requires the hunter to turn towards and aim at a point ahead of where their target is flying. The hope is that the target flies into their projectiles’ path. The task of computing “lead” was aided by the gyroscopic gunsight. Before these it was pretty much a hit or miss affair with the preponderance towards the latter.
My Grandad was a Quartermaster during WW2 as he was too old for battle. I have one of the rounds from a Spitfire that he had converted into a cigarette lighter. You pull the black bullet off to reveal a wick and sparkwheel. There is a brass, flat head screw where the primer goes. Apparently he had kept a lot of things he shouldn't have, which my dad said were spread all over the house he grew up in.
I find the explanations quite convoluted, the reality is quite simple: Hispano Suiza was originally a Spanish car manufacturer, but, diversifying into aviation, these new activities were entirely installed in France as a Franco-Spanish company. During the creation of the 12Y engine which will first equip the Morane 406 then the Dewoitine D520, it was decided to integrate a 20mm cannon firing through the axis of the propeller: this is the famous Canon HS404 , also known in the Soviet Union under the designation ShWAK integrated into the Klimov 105 engine which is nothing other than an evolution of the 12Y for which the Soviets had purchased the rights before the war and which equipped the Yax 1, 3 and 9. The British quickly understood the advantages of this excellent, precise, powerful and reliable canon, and quickly installed it on certain Spitfires, however, this gun being designed to operate in the heat of the engine, posed numerous jamming problems due to the icing, in addition the drum magazine was too bulky and of low capacity (60 rounds) and did not properly fit in the wings, the British branch of Hispano Suiza therefore revised the design and also adapted it to a belt feed. Naturally , the installation of such a powerful weapon posed some problems on planes not initially designed for that, but the British preferred it to the cal 50 heavy machine guns favored by the Americans. The HS404 cannon has had a very long career, as it equipped the F8FN Crusader in service until 1999 in the French navy.
*chuckles* reminds me of the novel 'Sharpe's Command' which I read the other day. Lieutenant Love (predictably called Cupid behind his back) was in the artillery, and said it seemed appropriate as his father was a canon. Sgt Harper thought he meant /cannon/ so decided Love was as mad as a box of frogs :)
Solid BFG addition
Hispano-Suiza was a awesome corporation, its different branches produced from luxury cars to combat airplanes with BFW in between.
Hell yeah! As if these episodes couldn't get any more cool.
39 Seconds after got posted.
Last Time i arrived this early i Had to sleep on the couch
I really love these videos but I sincerely wish the audio levels were better - most of these videos are incredibly quiet and I always have to turn my volume way up specifically for these videos.
In the State of California, U.S.A. any calibre above .50" or 12.7 mm is defined as a canon.
[air horns of celebration]
Thank you, Jonathan, for finally explaining why they are called "Hispano-Suiza".
Your microphone is not working.
its soooooo quiet
Sound levels very low had to max out volume just to hear what was said, every other clip I watched fine, sort your sound out.
the hole gun recioling is a good thing with drum mags it will shuffle the rounds in the drum and help the restack for better feeding,this is why drum mags work better with the gun held upside down ,,,, like a hopper.. its not only gavity that helps feed that way up.
Had one dug up back in the day close to what was RAF Bishops Court... Had it in the armoury for a clean up for ages...always wondered what a full y restored one would look like
Would love to see another vid on the Mk V Hispano if you've got one as well.
Could you do a video on auto-cannon ammunition types?
volume?
My grandfather served in the War, and one of the things I inherited from him is a lighter built out of an unfired round from one of these beasts. It doesn't work anymore, but it seems like the lighter fluid would go where the cordite goes and the bullet is unaltered. (Obviously not a high-ex bullet, that would not be a good choice for a lighter body.) It's a neat little bit of history to have around.
About 9:00 ~ before we move off it completely, I always understood a 'Machine gun' could be armed with solids or tracers, and being a rifle calibre, that's about all. A gun became a "Canon" when it could fire a variety of ammunition, such as you showed here, with solids, incendiary, tracer, or high explosive or armour piercing. 1) higher calibre (starts about 20mm, yes) and 2) multiple ammunition types, including solid, armour piercing, incendiary and explosive.
A Browning .50 cal (Ma Deuce) is sorta on the boundary, close to it. Most were (and are) armed with solids, but a half inch is big enough to make specialised ammunition for.
Later, we developed Gatling type multi-barrel guns, and learned you need to deal with your brass, so they worked out a clever system where the spent rounds got shifted to the back of the magazine. You can just let them spew brass everywhere but it's not a safe arrangement in an aircraft.
There is also the question of having and carrying lots of ammunition. You do want a rate of fire that's up over 800 rounds / min, but you also want to be able to hose out at least a 5 second burst ~ at least once. A gun that can and does spend it's whole 800 round magazine in less than 3 seconds or so ~ doesn't give you much of a second chance. A Mini-gun could chew through 6,ooo rounds a minute or something. You'd need to carry a hell of a lot of ammunition for that one. Yes, a Mini-gun was generally a 7.62, not a 20mm. The 20 mm can still go through 6,ooo if you're trying but I understand a more normal rate is about 2400 ~ 3000. You should have somewhere upward of 7 ~ 10 seconds firing time. Less than that, and you're in real danger of using your whole magazine in one burst.
Banger audio job mates !
Looks like a bloody enormous shock absorber.
Inflictor.
I've been following the videos, great series but if you could do something with the way too low sound level that would be great, now the video is just unwatchable with the massive variation. I like my hearing so I won't be turning the volume to double or triple to hear what Jonathan is saying.
need more Voice volume.
My grandfather was a design engineer with Ford's at Dagenham during the entire war...
I remember him telling of working on the spitfire, Churchill tank,and other various things they did there for the war efforts.
He may well have been heavily involved with the transition of the spitfires all round performance...
I do know that he had several 303 rounds and a couple of old Canon shells very similar to those shown...
His job was whatever came his way ,and to improve,improvise, update, create ...He wasn't allowed to volunteers for active service ,as he was told his and his colleagues efforts would be far more destructive to the enemy than as individuals getting shot as a single soldier...Apparently he always tried ,but his applications used to get put back on his desk lol..
So he went home guard instead ,and was in charge of 6 anti aircraft guns near the factory...
A lot of his work became easier as well due to the Americans bringing in all their newest tools of mass production and specialist tools ...Britain needed...
Like the kink to rhe Spitfire, very interesting to see the weapon in the context of how it was used and the developent of the aircraft to accoodate it. big thubs up.
Thanks for share your presentation of the armament of spitfires and also the hurricane fascinating listening to the development of the gun👍👍👍👍
Was that same one on the Korean War era Corsairs?
"What if" is always fun, and I wonder how big of an effect it would have had on the battle of Britain, had the 20mm cannons worked perfectly then already.
I was always under the impression that a "cannon" in this regard meant it fired ammo with an explosive projectile as the norm. Whereas machine guns normally fire a solid projectile.
Hey Jonathan, thanks for another great video! As an Aussie I predominantly use metric but because of my age I'm quite fluent in Imperial too so please forgive my confusion. When you say 7.9 feet, do you mean 7 feet 9 inches or 7 feet and 9/10ths of a foot or something I haven't even considered? I'm a little confused by this on a regular basis and suspect it's an artifact of people jumping between both systems but I'm never sure!
We had the metric inch and foot taught at school ( Sutton Coldfield,UK ), but it did not catch on all that much in engineering companies.
7.9ft would be 7 feet and 9/10ths of a foot. It's a decimal feet measurement.
This video is great. Thanks for making it. I agree with the comments above tho, the audio volume is very low in places.
Ffs! We have all gathered there's something wrong with the sound, why do you balloon heads have to keep mentioning it!?
We had a version on that on the PBV 302.
Iam curious how you fix jams:)
could not hear this at full volume
The early Spitfire's armament was the result of calculations made by 13 year old Hazel Hill. She worked out that it needed at least eight machine guns rather than the four it was originally destined for.
A true American at heart.
If eight were insufficient just think how bad four would have been. Granted one rifle caliber round in theright place will take down a single and possibly a twin engined bomber of the period. Specifically a hit on the engine coolant or oiling system. These fluids were being pumped at high volumes with a limited supply which would lead to engine failure. Radials are less susceptible to this being air cooled but also suffer from higher drag on the engine installation. That is until the FW-190 and a few other types proved otherwise.
Sound is a little quiet folks this week.
I thought it was just my phone.
Great presentation. I learned a great deal.
Canon, the round made of steel has a copper drive band formed around the round, alternatively a machine gun, the drive band is formed into the soft bullet casing while being driven down the barrel
This is pretty cool to learn about. I had some idea about it's mechanical workings having the documentation for the US versions. An interesting tidbit is that the US did not call them cannons. We called them Automatic Guns. Also, the HS.404 was not an original design by Hispano-Suzia. It was a modified version of the Oerlikon 20mm used in many other aircraft before and during WW 2 such as the Bf 109, A6M2, D.520, and P-38. Essentially what happened with the British version (your Mk. II) was they ended up having to modify it because what was happening was the gun was as you said designed to be mounted in an engine block, and the struggles they were having were related to trying to get it to work in a wing where it was able to vibrate and move quite a bit leading to the constant misfeeds and jamming
While they certainly referred to the Oerlikon in the design of the Hispano-Suiza, it was a fundamentally different gun using an entirely different mechanism
Why was the mistake in the chamber length continued in US versions of the Hispano. I know International Harvester made the initial error, leading to light strikes on the primer and misfires on the M1 version, but why did this continue right up to the M24?
-You are actually correct. The first Hsipani-Suyiza canon were license produced Oerlikons which came out the the German WW1 Becker design. It's a complicated story but roughly its true that the Germans invented the 20mm class of weapons in WW1 (Beckerer M2 Canon that became the Oerlikon FF) and Solothurn ST-5 that became the C30 FLAK. Because of the treaty of Versailes manufacture in Germany was impossible these patents of the German works was sold of to Dutch, Swedish and Swiss companies often with substantial investment by the German companies or in joint ventures using German engineers.
-The Becker came back as the Oerlikon MG FF used on Early German Fighters like the Me 109E and the more powerful Soluthurn as the C30 FLAK.
-The HS.404 was Hispano's design using an American patent after the relationship with Oerlikon broke down. It used a gas mechanism to operate the bolt thus increasing rate of fire by about 75%
-The German 15mm MG151 and the necked up 20mm MG 151/20 were recoil operated and lighter than the Hispano. They had the same ROF but slightly lower velocity and shell weigh so considerably less kinetic energy. The 15mm MG151 actually had better ballistics and muzzle velocity than the US M2 Browning and the Hispano but the small projectile size wasn't destructive enough. The pilots of early Me 109F0/F1 that had the 15mm canon loved it because of its accuracy but the average pilot lacked the skill to take long range shots. In addition when attacking a bomber formation the turbulence mad long range shooting difficult.
-The Germans added gas operation to nearly double rate of fire on 30mm MK101 to 30mm MK103 and nearly double ROF with gas operation on 3.7cm FLAK 37 to 3.7cm FLAK 42.
what tf is up with the audio being so quiet i literally have windows volume at 100, youtube volume at 100 and even my tv is turned all the way up to over 50
Great explanation from UK Steve Buscemi!
A long time ago I helped baby sit a US 20 mm M2 Hispano Aircraft Autocannon for a couple of weeks. My dad although a medic was an Oerlikon gunner when traveling back and forth across the Pacific on Troopships as a US Army Hospital Ship Medic part of a 8 enlisted one Officer regimental level unit. The US copy of the 404 chambers were a tiny fraction of an inch too long due poor measurement conversion in usage at the time which caused jamming on occasion depending on ammo lots.
Sound is fine on an iPad but low on PC.
Sad to hear that the Duxford facility cuts up these old aircraft…
long barrel does have one advantage tho. it takes longer to heat up when firing full auto.
When I saw the silhouette preview, I thought "That looks like an aircraft-mounted autocannon", and then immediately decided that "Nah, that can't be right."
I guess I need to learn to better trust my first impression.
interesting with the wire wound spring .
Mark Birkigt was a very accomplished engineer, the Hispano Suiza cars he built in the 20s were possibly/probably the best in the world.
Remember reading John Cunningham's radar operator describing changing the magazines on the four cannons inside a bucking beaufighter during night-fighter operations in the early part of the war.. Now l can see the size of the magazine l can understand his predicament.......
Where the hell was the microphone placed for this video? France?
Good video. The colouring and audio are absolutely shocking though.
Audio levels... Can beardly hear start of video then ears destroyed at 2:40
You made a reference to lubricating oil making the action difficult to operate, would incorrect specification lubricating oil at low temperatures contribute to misfires/fouling?
I would LOVE to see a video on the Puckle Gun, the first machine gun
Canon also sound a little more, oomph than gun.
I actually prefers your usual background Jonathan, the warehouse shots reminds me of Matrix, 'Guns, we need lots of guns....'
Speaking of, have you done a Matrix breakdown?
cannon*
Looking at the size of the thing, I can totally understand your reasons for using this in two videos in one day